Disney Hopping

Wednesday, I woke up hungry. Through a lot of weird circumstances, I did not eat supper the night before which left me irritable and grateful for the danish and milk at the resort bakery. It is very important when at Disney to eat regular meals. You walk so much and there is so much to do that you just have to make yourself stop and eat. I attended a seminar with Tuan, but realized that the speaker's head was not supposed to grow and shrink while he was talking, so I bee-lined for the bakery and a place to sit. The resort had these fun, cushioned booths adjacent to the lake and it was a wonderful breakfast spot.

Tuan and the guys had meetings in the morning, so I decided to go resort hopping. I'm a total visual junkie and couldn't wait to get out and see some of the upscale resorts. I hopped on the shuttle to Epcot and where I got on the monorail. I had dumbly assumed that the monorail was one single continuous line--it's actually several different routes, all distinguished by the stripes down the sides of the cars.

After a switch, I was on my way to the Contemporary, MK, Polynesian and Grand Floridian. The Contemporary looked a bit dinky (lots of construction), so I skipped it. In the car with me where some retirees from New York/Jersery area. They were quite fun and knew Mississippi because of Philadelphia and Pelahatchie. Small word (after all). As we talked, I found out that they were resort hopping as well.

The Polynesian was very eighties, but so cool. My favorite however, was the Grand Floridian. Not in a million years could I afford to stay there, but I could certainly dream! There was a near-life-size gingerbread house in the lobby and gingerbread scent was actually being misted over the building. The shops were neat and it was just a beautiful and happy place! I wandered around and was just preparing to sink down into a leather chair when Tuan called to make lunch plans. He, Zack and Andrew were at Downtown Disney and wanted to eat at Rainforest Cafe.

In one of God's incredible travel providences, I caught the bus for Downtown Disney just in time and made it to DD.

Walt Disney World is a neat place. It's an expensive vacation for sure, but I have friends who have taken their kids to the resort, ridden the monorail and visited DD, then called it a trip. Crazy as that sounds, you really could do that with young kids and save some money. DD is a free downtown area that has neat shops and attractions. There is a gigantic Lego store, toy store, shops and attractions aplenty. The Rainforest Cafe is akin to eating on the Jungle Cruise. The food was great and the atmosphere quite fun. There are animatronic elephants that trumpet and every now and then it rains in the restaurant. (you stay dry) I highly recommend it. We ate a marvelous meal and strolled around before heading back to rest.

We were scheduled to visit Epcot that evening with the conference attendees, so we grabbed a quick rest and caught the shuttles to Epcot. It was Andrew and Zack's only chance to be in the parks, so we followed them. Andrew walks fast. : ) Our first stop was Mission: Space. It's a space flight simulator hosted by Gary Sinise. You know you're in for a crazy ride when every few feet is a warning (adviso!) encouraging you to try the less intense version. Given the traumatic Space Mountain experience of the previous day, I was leery, but really wanted to ride with Tuan.

Mission: Space was very, very fun with lots of crazy G-force. I survived fine, but Zack was left queasy and opted to sit out of Soarin'. I had really looked forward to that ride and it was nice, but not spectacular. We also did the Test Track, which is a vehicle road test simulator. I was excited about it until I realized we were in a Buick. : ) No, really, it was very fun.

We wrapped up our evening with the Candlelight processional and the fireworks show in the World Showcase Lagoon. Very impressive. We didn't eat supper at Epcot, so Tuan and I (having learned from the previous night), decided to order a Papa John's pizza. We waited for over an hour and discovered that the driver had our number wrong--argh!!! Once we worked it all out, Papa John's comped the pizza which was very nice of them. We went to bed with sore feet, but very excited about the next day: In the parks, all day, just us!